Cursed Movies: Poltergeist

It’s that time of year when we think about all things scary and spooky. Many of us love a scary movie, but what happens when the truth behind those movies is scary than fiction? There are some films that are considered cursed movies. This is when a movie with a spooky premise has several terrible or strange things happen while they are being filmed. This doesn’t include any movie that went over budget or didn’t make much money even though they had a lot of backing from the studios. This is only movies that are supposed to be scary, and have had some awful things happen to the cast and crew while filming or even right after! Cursed movies send a chill down your spine and rethink taking a role if you are an actor! This will be a first in a series of posts about some very real, and very scary cursed movies

One of the scariest and most cursed movies of all time is Poltergeist. Too bad this curse wasn’t limited to only one of these movies! Poltergeist came out in the 1982 and wast based around the Freeling Family. It started off as one movie, but was so popular, it became a trilogy and even had a TV series that ran for a short time. The Freeling family had a poltergeist in their home that was very active, and ended up being able to communicate with their youngest daughter, Carol Anne. The spirits took advantage of this poor child, and kidnapped her and took her into another dimension. The family banded together, and with the help of a medium, they were able to get Carol Anne back. However, that didn’t mean the family was safe. The second movie gives more details of the entity that took Carol Anne. The ghosts have followed the family, making their life very challenging. The third is the about Carol Anne who is sent to live with other family in order to keep safe. If only the scripts were the scariest thing about these cursed movies!

From the time this movie started, to 6 years after it was finished, there were many deaths, horrible accidents, and all around bad luck. Of course, this could all be passed off as a major coincidence, but it’s easy to see why people would believe this is a cursed movie. Sadly, two of the young stars passed away in very tragic ways. The actress Dominique Dunn, who played the older daughter, Dana, was murdered by her boyfriend between the first and second movie. Heather O’Rourke, who played Carol Anne, died at age 12 after battling an unknown illness. Both of these untimely deaths affected the cast and crew deeply, sending several into a downward spiral of depression and grief. Julian Beck, who played Kane in the second movie, passed right after filming his part of the movie. This was not unexpected since he had been battling cancer, and the viewer could tell how bad his health was while he was on the screen. It actually made the whole movie a lot scarier seeing how sickly the actor was while filming. Will Sampson, who played the good spirit in the second movie also passed after an organ transplant. The director of the second Poltergeist, Brian Gibson, also passed away soon after the completion of the movie.

This list of bad luck also includes on set accidents, and even the use of real skeletons! However, the actors were not told before they filmed that these were real, and not fake. It was actually more cost efficient to have real skeletons instead of using ones made out of rubber. JoBeth Williams, who was in the pool with the skeletons, was very disturbed when she found out the truth, and blamed some of the issues going on in the movie on the fact that they had desecrated remains. The second movie was filled with some much tension, and strange things happening all around that Will Sampson preformed a cleansing ritual to get ride of any evil around them. Cast members reported that this was very helpful and felt much better.

It is true that all of these terrible things could just happen. Most of these people worked together on 3 films for around a 10 year period. If you watch a group of people for 10 years in a traditional work environment, then most likely you will see several people have very tragic things happen to them, including loss of life. It can be argued then, that this group of people were just watched closer than the average people working in a small team for years due to their fame, and the popularity of the movies. However, these movies were all based on a true story! There are several real life events that happened to many families that inspired these movies. This even include things that happened from producer Steven Spielberg’s own life!

Poltergeist is a real thing to many people, and the origins of why the terrible and scary things that are happening to them leaves them paranoid, desperate, and even depressed since no one will believe their stories. Unfortunately, there are events in the world that we can’t explain. When you are met with little belief, you get little help. People don’t know where to turn, so they either make the activity worse, or they just try to live with what is going on with them as best as they can. The original movie features real life medium, actress Zelda Rubinstein, who played the movie’s medium who helped get Carol Anne back from the other side. Zelda reported many strange things happening, and even warned the cast and crew to be careful because they could wake something that they may not be able to understand, or would be able to control.

No matter if you think Poltergeist, and it’s sequels were cursed movies or not, you can’t deny the tragic things that happened. It is very hard when a child dies, especially when they were so young and the illness that took her has been disagreed upon for years. It’s also very hard to know that a young woman was murdered by her boyfriend. Her life was taken, but he only served a little over 3 years in jail for his very public crime. It may not be cursed, but it is very tragic. The terrible things that happened on set, the terrible feelings, and the fear could all be explained as psychosomatic, but what it it wasn’t? What if they really did disturb something while making these movies and it was a curse, or even a warning to not mess with something that you don’t understand?

What do you think? Do you think this series was cursed, or do you think it’s all a matter of bad things happening as time passes? Leave your comments about this topic below.